


The Things You Build Yourself

by florianschild



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Thick as Thieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florianschild/pseuds/florianschild
Summary: “The King of Attolia is generous. He sends me here with my good friend, and makes everything ready for us before we two arrive. Perhaps before we even set sail."





	The Things You Build Yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pluvial_poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvial_poetry/gifts).



> Happy holidays, pluvial_poetry. It was lovely writing this for you, especially since you are a newer fan of the series. It's been one of my favorite fandoms for many years. I really hope you enjoy!

The King had sent ahead a servant to make the house in Roa ready for them.

Kamet, after they had arrived and carried in their belongings, began to look around. The house consisted of one room with a sleeping loft above. In the main room, there were a hearth and a window. An iron cookpot hung over the stove. There were two chairs pushed under a small wooden table that sat below the window. The western sun slanted in, painting the room in black shadows and golden light. Inside of a cabinet next to the table rested two earthen bowls, two horn cups, and two wooden spoons, each pair nestled neatly together.

Kamet stopped there, in front of the cabinet, staring at the dishes. Costis, who had begun to empty their packs, noticed when Kamet’s explorations ended. Still bent over their belongings and halfway though unlacing the straps that held his sword in place, he looked up at his friend and watched him gaze into the cabinet. He waited a few moments before walking over to join him.

He looked at Kamet. At the dishes. Back to Kamet. His face creased with suppressed amusement, and he asked “Are you waiting for the dishes to dance?”

But Kamet was still, his dark eyes transfixed on the tidy little stacks. After a moment, he turned to look at Costis. “Two beds. Two chairs at the table. Two bowls and two cups. This house was made ready for two.”

Costis’s brow furrowed. “You’re not worried about living in close quarters, are you? Are you having second thoughts?”

Kamet turned away from Costis and the cabinet. He crossed to the doorway, traversing the small room in three paces, and placed his hand upon the door jamb. 

Costis’s voice, pitched higher and without the gentle teasing from a moment before, spoke from the periphery of his attention. “Kamet. Is everything alright?”

Kamet could hear the alarm rising in his friend’s tone. It drew him back to the present, to this cozy, light-drenched room and the cupboard with two bowls. He turned to look at Costis, tried to smile and reassure him that he needn’t worry. Second thoughts, Costis had asked. Second thoughts — about Costis, about adventuring forward together — were the furthest thing from his mind. The thoughts that had shaken him were very much first thoughts, realizations that were coming to him very suddenly as every detail of the situation began to settle and become clear.

“The King of Attolia is generous,” he murmured, with a smile that was real but unrelated to the words that he was speaking. A smile conjured by the sight of the man standing before him, and in spite of thoughts of distant political machinations. “He sends me here with my good friend, and makes everything ready for us before we two arrive. Perhaps before we even set sail.”  
Costis smiled and joined him at the doorway. They looked outward together, upon the valley and the few village homes that could be seen from their vantage point part way up goat path that led to the temple.

Costis relaxed at Kamet’s smile. He trusted his King, and so he took Kamet’s words at face value. They stood together and watched as the evening began to wear toward night, listening to the twilight birdsong die away. It was cooler in Magyar than it had been in Attolia, and the breeze off the Ellid sea leant a salty tang to the air. Kamet shivered, and blinked in surprise when Costis’s arm wound around his shoulder, keeping away the chill.

 

Life began to take on a rhythm. Happiness crept up on them over the course of weeks and months. The days of working in the temple yielded to nights spent in the cozy house, telling each other all the stories that they knew of the stars and the gods and of Immakuk and Ennikar. For Kamet, it began to grow harder to remember to hold contentment at bay. But on the most perfect of evenings, Kamet would gaze into the cabinet for a moment at the two bowls and think: _he put all of this here._

 

When a messenger arrived in the fall, Kamet was there to read the letter. Relius had agreed that the tedium of translating their communications into and from highland Setran would be worth the security it provided. None who cared to intercept their messages would likely even recognize the language. 

“The King has requested you attend him in Stinos, on his way to a royal visit to the court of Eddis,” Kamet read. 

Costis raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose he’s mentioned why he summons me?” 

Kamet shook his head.

 

Stinos was close to Magyar. Costis could travel through the back country on foot, avoiding notice and still making relatively good time. The entire trip took hardly more than a moon’s turn. While he was alone, Kamet spoke aloud to himself to break the silence. He wrote a letter to Relius and made timelines of his journey with Costis. He drew a map. Each day he prepared dinner and ate it from one bowl. How absurd, to wonder whether Costis would return. But there was one bowl, one cup, and one spoon that sat unused in the cabinet, and Kamet found it particularly difficult to set his worries aside when he thought of that.

 

Costis did return, of course. When Kamet came home from the temple one evening Cosis was there, sitting at the small table and eating leftover porridge from the second bowl. He looked up when Kamet came in and smiled.

Seeing him there, smiling and happy and _home_ , was accompanied by such a strong wave of relief that Kamet felt his knees give way and he stumbled back against the wall. 

Costis leapt up and rushed to help him to his feet. “Are you well?” he asked, his voice warm and familiar.

“You’ve returned,” was the most he could manage. He blinked and kept his gaze directed at the floorboards, lest Costis see the alarm he felt rising through him. 

Costis laughed. “You seem surprised. Of course I’ve returned.” His tone changed when Kamet said nothing, eyes still downcast. “Kamet? Of course I’ve returned. What is it?”

“You come and go for him at his whim,” Kamet began, wishing that he could be saying anything else, but knowing that it must be said. “Why should the King of Attolia not wish to have you with him again?”

“His Majesty sent me back here to you with his blessing for us both,” Costis said, and Kamet let out a snort of breath.

“Every good thing I have, I have by the grace and blessing of His Majesty. Is there nothing that I can claim for myself? That I can hold in my hands and know that I’ve rightfully earned? Nothing has changed. The life of a slave is a series of generous bestowals. Even the most diligent, most valuable slave earns nothing. Every sip of wine he takes and every scrap of cloth that he wears are gifts that his master bestows. This house, my position at the temple, my freedom. You, here with me. Eugenides offers me a life full of contentment.”

“Kamet, I-”

“Suppose he should choose to take it away.”

“He won’t,” Costis said. He took Kamet’s hands between both of his, clasping them and leaning in close to whisper. “I’m with you for good.”

Kamet looked up from the floor, forcing himself to look at Costis and not to drop his gaze. It was so wonderful to see his face, the dirt from his travels darkening his skin and greying his sandy-colored hair. The sun had brought out a new spray of freckles across his nose. Kamet felt the rough calluses of the hands locked around his own, and told himself that as long as they remained holding each other, Costis could not go away. “He sent you here with his leave. He allowed you to return again.” He was pleading now, willing Costis to understand. “He wished it and planned it all ahead. There were two bowls!”

Costis was shaking his head, but smiling. “Two bowls?”

The breath that Kamet drew in was shaky. “When we arrived here. The cabinet.”

“I don’t-,” Cotis started, taken off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I thought... But it was all his doing. He sent you to accompany me, and he made this house ready for two. You told me as much, on the dock before we left. But still I hoped that perhaps you had chosen to come here with me of your own accord.”

“And what makes you think, after all this time, that I didn’t.”

Kamet was quiet while he thought. Why did insist on viewing their life here in Roa as impermanent? He remembered the smell of remchick and the feeling of the earth dropping away from beneath him each time Nahuseresh’s mood would change. “I can’t trust anything that is given,” he whispered, looking down. “Not when it can be so easily taken away.”

Costis raised his arms, Kamet’s hands still clasped between his own. He closed the already-narrow space between them until they were separated only by their upraised fists. Kamet looked at him again.

“One day, I’ll convince you that you deserve every good thing in the world.” Costis smiled. It was impossible not to trust him, with the easy, earnest expression he wore. “But I don’t have to do that today. Because I’m not here on the orders of the King of Attolia. He’s not dangling me in front of you as a prize. You did earn this, Kamet. In Koadester. In Zaboar. Across a mountain range. Across a sea. The King of Attolia did not order me to fall in love. You did that all on your own.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic was taken from the wonderful song of the same name by The Monarchs. They rock, and I highly recommend anyone who loves indie girl groups to check them out.


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